Konkani Language - Dialects

Dialects

Konkani, despite having a small population shows a very high number of dialects. The dialect tree structure of Konkani can easily be classified according to the region, religion, caste and local tongue influence.

Other researchers have classified the dialects differently.

Kalelkar classification

Based on the historical events and cultural ties of the speakers, N. G. Kalelkar has broadly classified the dialects into three main groups:

• Northern Konkani: Dialects spoken in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra with strong cultural ties to Marathi; i.e. Malvani
• Central Konkani: Dialects in Goa and Northern Karnataka, where Konkani came in close contact with Portuguese language and culture.
• Southern Konkani: Dialects spoken in the Canara region(Mangalore & Udupi) of Karnataka which came in close contact with Tulu and Kannada.

Ethnologue (ISO) classification

Ethnologue assigns two ISO 639-3 codes to varieties of Konkani, which it labels a 'macrolanguage' with the code
kok:

1. 
   gom Goan Konkani – official recognition as an independent language
2. 
   knn Maharashtrian Konkani – no official recognition, treated by some linguists as a dialect of Marathi

Both languages are referred to as Konkani by their respective speakers.